Positive Exerforcement And The Philosophy Of Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning is a type of learning where a person is taught that specific actions are related to specific consequences. The main goal of using this type of conditioning is to encourage the individual to change his or her behavior in some way. Specifically, the individual can be encouraged to perform a desired behavior more often through use of positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, and he or she can also be encouraged to perform an undesired behavior less often through use of positive punishment and negative punishment. Positive reinforcement is basically a type of operant conditioning in which an addition or reward is given to the individual when he or she has displayed the desired behavior, and as a result, the behavior

The goal of using positive reinforcement in this situation would be to encourage the students to behave in a kind and respectful manner in hopes that their disrespectful behavior would decrease. To achieve this goal, I believe it would be best to use positive reinforcement to reward the students whenever they do behave like they should. For example, if I, as the teacher, were asking questions in class, I would compliment the students or even give them a physical reward, such as candy, when they raise their hands in a calm manner to answer questions. Not only would this encourage their participation in class, but it would encourage them to participate in a respectful manner. The use of a reward, physical or otherwise, could also be applied to situations where the students perform any desired behavior such as doing their work quietly. By using positive reinforcement, it makes sense that the more the students are encouraged to act kindly and respectfully, the less often they will act

With negative reinforcement, when the students act politely, I would basically take something away from them that they had a negative attitude towards in the first place. If there is a student in the class who has a particularly bad habit of talking back to me and making up his own rules, then by using negative reinforcement, my goal would be to encourage him to behave more politely, like by not talking back. So, if this student displays polite behavior such as following my rules instead of his own on three separate occasions, then he will not have to complete one homework assignment. I believe that this method could be applied to other situations as well, like telling the students that they do not have to complete a homework assignment if they answer questions calmly and by raising their hands on three separate occasions, as mentioned before. When using negative reinforcement, the students will want to have less of something they see as negative, like homework, so they should behave more